46 TPi MARCH 07

tpiAWARDS07tpiAWARDS07MARK CUNNINGHAM EXPLAINS THE BACKGROUND TO THE DESIGN OFTPi’S SIXTH ANNUAL LIVE PRODUCTION INDUSTRY EXTRAVAGANZA!

Despite the stress that inevitably accompaniesplanning this event alongside a manically-busymagazine schedule, the TPi Awards is always thehighlight of our year and one that continues to growin popularity, size and sophistication.

Indeed, the credibility of the event is becomingincreasingly acknowledged by artists and music VIPs,who have demonstrated their sense of the productionindustry's value by appearing as guest presenters. Our2007 Awards on February 5 saw a greater 'celeb'presence than ever, with Beatles producer Sir GeorgeMartin, Queen legend Brian May, Jeff Wayne of TheWar Of The Worlds fame, former Smiths bassist AndyRourke and Feargal Sharkey each taking their turn toreward the great and good of our business.

Although the growth pattern suggested that wewould need to move to a larger venue for 2007 —and we were guilty of prematurely announcing this —we were forced to remain at the Novotel when noappropriate alternative could be found.

This was to be the fourth consecutive TPi Awardsat the Novotel (after our first two at the Hilton

Metropole in Edgware Road) and it was felt importantto radically break the mould in order to keep it fresh.By moving to an in-the-round presentation on a 16foot diameter stage — as opposed to the 'landscape'staging of previous years — not only would this beachieved, but it would enable additional audience spacethat was further maximised when the far rear of theChampagne Suite was opened up.

Almost 1,200 guests far exceeded past audiencefigures, and although I mentioned during myintroduction that for the first time we were staging theAwards in two postcodes, I was only half joking!

Naturally, the in-the-round concept came with anew set of production challenges and our team ofsupply companies and technicians — many retainedfrom 2006 — jumped in head first to provide expertsolutions. Co-ordinating all departments for the secondyear were production manager Steve Allen and hissidekick Julie Chennells, who was unaware that on thebig night she would scoop the Production Co-ordinator of the Year prize (a tough secret to keep).

"Considering the problems we could have had

with the venue, due to the increased capacity, I thinkwe did very well," said Steve Allen, who oversaw arelaxed load-in from midnight on Saturday 3rd. "It'samazing that we fitted everyone and everything intosuch a relatively small area, and there were numerousthings that could have gone wrong, but thanks toexcellent teamwork it all went to plan. I couldn't haveasked for better support."

POSITIVELY RADIATINGAfter several site meetings in December and January,Mike Oates, Simon Stuart and Howard Dean at HSLfinally came up with a game plan for lighting the event,having secured the support of both Martin Professionaland A.C. Lighting who provided a sizeable array ofspecialist kit.

Above the stage, a chandelier effect was createdby a series of radiating hi-res Chroma-Q Color Webcircles which were run over 40 lines of DMX. Around100m2 of the Color Web product was supplied to HSLby A.C. Lighting, who imported it from overseasespecially for the event and assigned Lee House for

Above L-R: Production co-ordinator Julie Chennells celebrates her surprise win with our PM, Steve Allen; the video graphics and control department (plusshowcaller Alex Clayton, second left); ML’s Gareth Jones and video director Richard Shipman; Local Crew’s Jon Davis in the production office with Mr. Allen.

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Suggs

07 MARCH TPi 47

Clockwise from top left: Our host Suggs (centre & omnipresent!) and Brian May present the prestigious Lifetime Contribution Award to Robbie Williams; MC& Sir George Martin with Stéphane Mongeau of Cirque du Soleil, winner of The Editor’s Award; guest presenters Feargal Sharkey and Andy Rourke; producerand composer Jeff Wayne of The War Of The Worlds album and tour fame hands the Favourite Staging Company award to Hedwig de Meyer of Stageco.

Above L-R: Howard Dean and Mike Oates of HSL; LD Neil Vann; Lee House of A.C. Lighting plots the Color Web map; ML’s Gary Sylvester and Oz Bagnall;the S+H Technical Support team — Chris Horrell, Fred Fisher and Jason Till — worked on the ShowLED Animation ‘superdrape’ in the Chablis Suite.

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technical support. Also rigged above the stage were 10of Martin's new TW1 tungsten wash fixtures, 10 MAC2000 profiles and four Atomic strobes. This 'chandelier'concept was repeated with four smaller satelliteversions around the room.

"We went through many incarnations of thelighting and set design, all based on the Mod logo idea,until we settled on the final look," said Oates. "A.C.and Martin were brilliant. In the case of A.C., they builtthe Color Web system and configured it in advance forus, so that we didn't need to spend a lot of load-intime on it," said Oates. "We had an Ethernet networkcontrolling the Color Web as a stand-alone system andran it with a Radical Lighting NG-1 media server thatgenerated a range of patterns."

As is evident from many of the photographs here,Martin's TW1s enhanced the Sixties theme. Oatesexplained: "I was delighted when Martin offered us theTW1s because back in the 1960s, concert lightingrelied a lot on tungsten lighting and that colourtemperature. The TW1s helped us recreate that stark,

high-action feel rather than going down a morepredictable, razzamatazz route."

Spread around the main room were a further 30TW1 washes, plus 10 Martin MAC 2000 profiles, 10MAC 700 profiles and — for some of the bigger looks— a extra Atomic 3000 strobes with colour scrollersthat beamed through the Color Web to create shadoweffects. For rear table lighting, HSL used eight MAC250 Entours and eight MAC 250 washes.

"I was over the moon when Martin agreed tosupply the MAC 700s, as well as the TW1s, directfrom Denmark," said Oates. "They also sent downChris Hale to offer support whenever we needed it, sowe were looked after very well."

All of the lighting was controlled a Jands Vista T4console — again provided by A.C. Lighting — whichwas programmed and operated by Neil Vann, theJands product manager for the UK.

Oates observed: "This audience will always be thehardest to please, simply by the nature of who theyare, so the challenge is always to give them something

a little different. It was a massive productionconsidering the size of the venue. It looked great and itwas really satisfying to see how everyone's ideas werepooled to form a very interesting design."

MAKING THE PICTURES WORKOnce again, video played a major role in the eventproduction and this year marked the debut of ThePicture Works as our video service company. Workingto a 16 x 9 format, four 5m x 3m Lighthouse 16mmLED screens were supplied from The Picture Works'stock while Lighthouse Technologies itself provided a6mm pixel pitch hi-res central LED screen, measuringapproximately 13m2.

In addition to this equipment, the cameras, and afully digital SDI production unit located in the upperfloor gallery, The Picture Works' Robin Wealleans cameup with the idea of supplying a Lighthouse 4mm pitch2.4m x 1.9m portrait LED display in the ChampagneSuite foyer, which ran a continuous DVD loop of TPimagazine covers from the last year.

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With around 30% of the audience sat in whatmight undiplomatically be called the 'overspill' portionof the Champagne Suite, it was critical that they theywere made to feel as included as possible. StuartHolmes of Reading-based PSCo delivered an amazingvisual solution with the supply of 10 50" and twohumongous 103" Panasonic true HD plasma screens,plus two 84" Orion HD plasmas. PSCo's team riggedthe plasmas and plugged in the video feeds, leaving theremainder of the job to The Picture Works team.

Said Stuart Holmes: "These are the best plasmascreens on the market, bar none, and so this was avery appropriate event for them. The reasons we'vebecome a partner with Panasonic on the 103" havemuch to do with our 10 years' experience with someof the biggest screens in the world. The visual quality ofthe screens on the Awards night was fantastic and I

take my hat off to The Picture Works for theirimmense professionalism."

It was when I asked Mondiale graphic designerMel Robinson to create an event logo based on theclassic Mod (or RAF) target that the Swinging Sixtiestheming virtually chose itself. Video director RichardShipman and the creative duo from Digital Insanity —Richard Bagshaw and Kate Perring — then hadenormous fun manipulating video content that either Ihad provided or they had sourced. Although I'd giventhem a basic brief on the general visual theme (achronological journey through the cultural iconographyof the '60s), they well and truly grabbed the baton andand ran with it!

The nominations graphics package was designed insuch a way that Suggs's own presentation woulddetermine the speed of delivery to the screens.

Shipman designed the opening Sixties 'history' montageand between the two of us we came up with the ideaof introducing each award category with a burst ofvisual static and a comedic 'sting', using a wide varietyof Sixties period footage.

Meanwhile, Bagshaw and Perring generated thegraphical elements, incorporating the circular eventlogo and nominee text 'wipes' and animated sponsorlogos. These were put together using two of the brandnew Hippotizer V3 which, in the case of some videoclips, were being used for the first time to outputsound as well as visuals.

Nigel Sadler of Green Hippo, who programmedthe material, said: "In fact, this was the first time that V3had ever been used to run a show — it's not launcheduntil the end of March. It allowed us to cue up everypart of the nomination package and have it perfectly

Suggs with... 1 Klark Teknik’s David Wiggins and Keith Davis of award-winning Capital Sound Hire; 2 Rock-It Cargo’s Matt Wright and victorious productionmanager Wob Roberts; 3 Monitor Engineer of the Year Andy ‘Baggy’ Robinson and Shure’s Alan March; 4 Robe’s Ian W. Brown with Julian Lavender andMichelle Keane of top lighting firm Neg Earth Lights; 5 Stage Manager of the Year Richard ‘Wez’ Wearing and Andy Rourke; 6 Martin Professional’s MarkRavenhill and winning LD Al Gurdon; 7 & 8 Robin Wealleans of The Picture Works presents the Video Director award to Blue Leach; 9 TPi assistant editorRachel Esson; 10 Set Designer of the Year Bill Laslett with Roger Barrett of the Star Events Group.

Left: A sparkling start to the ceremony, care of Pains SFX Dept. Right: The scene is set for the after-show party in the Chablis Suite.

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6

9 10

7 8

2 3

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synchronised for playback. We basically had one longdynamic timeline and we could jump around and pausebetween awards if we needed to. Normally you'd lineup several hard drives or video machines but with thisit's all contained within one machine and it provides anextremely high level of flexibility."

There were three regular cameras — two hiddenlong lenses and one hand-held — for delivering I-Mag,plus three remote Panasonic 'hot head' cameras(previously used on Coldplay and Big Brother) in theoverhead truss. Robin Wealleans explained: "Wemapped the main room into a clock face grid, and triedto get as much information of where the winners weresat in advance. So as soon as a winner was announced,we could immediately focus one of the remotecameras on that area and pick them up on the screensas they walked to the stage."

Edirol provided two full bandwidth vision mixers

which particularly pleased Shipman, who directed thefinal screen cut on a Sony DFS-700 switcher, suppliedby The Picture Works. "The Edirol kit was very usefulbecause the Hippotizer's native output is RGB/VGAwhich pulses too quickly for video equipment, so wehave to find a way of coverting the information to avideo source and the Edirols do that very nicely. So wesub-mixed the Hippotizer material into the Edirols,which Rich Bagshaw operated, allowing me to importthose streams into my final vision mix. It really was anexcellent solution."

The Sony vision mixer — running with a 16 x 16matrix — sent five separate mixes to the centrescreen, the two outside centre screens, the two faroutside screens and then the rear plasmas. The lattermix comprised of stage camera I-Mag, graphics andvideo clips, split around three circuits. Rather thanchoose the picture-in-picture option, the plasma

content was spread randomly around this seating areaso that everyone had visual access to all material.

Said Shipman: "It was refreshing to see no realevidence of video production in the room at all, apartfrom the camera operator at the side of the stage. It'salso not everyday you get to work with plasmas thesize of f**king houses! And it really made that rear areaa lot more special than it would otherwise have been."

DRAPING, RIGGING & TRANSPORTBlackout has assisted us every year to date with allmanner of drapeage, and when we asked Steve Tuck ifit would be possible to cover most of the entire lengthand width of the Champagne Suite in black LEDstarcloth, he didn't bat an eyelid. Tim Searle projectmanaged for Blackout and supplied approximately900m2 of starcloth, along with 400m of scaffold for itsframework that was braced to the roof grid.

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Above: MC and Andy Lenthall with Christopher ‘Unsung Hero’ Runciman; Suggs and Yamaha Commercial Audio’s Karl Christmas award Fred Heuves of theAmpco Flashlight Group; Feargal Sharkey joins Suggs in presenting Tony Laurenson and Mary Shelley-Smith with their fifth TPi Catering Company award.

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Show & Event Security‘CROWD MANAGEMENT COMPANY OF THE YEAR 2007’

• Covered 75 Major Events

• Attended by 2.8 million people

• Managed by 142 thousand personnel

• All of whom arrived and left safetly

Thank you to all our clients and staff whomade this possible

Unit 1, Sovereign Business CentreStockingswater Lane, Enfield, EN3 7JX

T: 020 8804 5058 F: 020 8804 7864E: office@showandevent.com

Punctuating the black starcloth was aseries of white voile sections, whichwere uplit by HSL using a total of 28iPix Satellite LED wash units.

Star Events Group continued itsrelationship with the event, supplying40 half-tonne CM chain hoists, 80metres of 12" box truss and associatedrigging. Rigging consultant MarkArmstrong made all the set drawings,and the crew was headed by SteveArmstrong. David Bond was Star'sproject manager.

Edwin Shirley Transport againassisted with the movement of a largepercentage of the production, kindlyproviding three tractors and trailers,and covering 725 miles during thefour-day load-in/out period.

EXECUTIVE SOUNDThe ML Group reprised its role as the2006 audio provider and, faced withthe completely re-designedpresentation, wisely specified a pointsource environment and the mainroom and rear tables were treated astwo separate zones.

L-Acoustics and EAW loudspeakerswere favoured for the job. In the mainroom, six hangs of ARCS (totalling 20units) were flown around theperimeter of the stage, supported bydV-DOSC front fills and EAW SB-1000sub-basses under the stage. Forreinforcement under the balcony andthrough to the rear tables, 15 EAW JF-80s were installed as spot fills alongwith further dV-DOSC stacks.

The system was powered bythree racks of Lab.gruppen fP6400amps, and processed with XTADP226s, while graphic EQ and timedelays were handled within the YamahaM7CL digital front-of-house console.Shure Beta 58 UHF wireless hand-heldmics were used by Suggs and all of theguest presenters.

"Unlike last year, it wasn't one

large open space that we could havedealt with in a conventional manner,"said ML's Gareth Jones. "But," addedFOH engineer Oz Bagnall, "it wasn'tanywhere as difficult to negotiate as Ifirst imagined. The fact that we'd donethe previous year didn't help at allbecause it was to a large extent atotally different event. The in-the-round staging and its position did posea big challenge but even more so outin the back area. During set-up we hadmembers of our crew fitted with in-earmonitoring so they could stand backthere and communicate with me atFOH, to ensure we had goodcoverage and time-alignmenteverywhere."

Working with Bagnall were GarySylvester (who edited and cued the'walk-up' music clips I'd supplied onMiniDisc), and audio techs AdrianFitzpatrick, James Tebb and Tony Allard.

Formerly known as Kroos, LocalCrew Ltd did just what you'd expect:provide local crew in the shape of 20general stage hands and two setcarpenters. Under the leadership ofJon 'JD' Davis and John-Henri Mills, theWimbledon-based company alsosupplied the 16 foot circular stage andits dressing, and ground supports forscreens and exit constructions.

An extra layer of glitz to theceremony this year was added by theSFX department of Pains Fireworks.With Shaun Barnett managing theproject, Owain White rigged and fireda number of stage effects that toppedand tailed the ceremony. For the intro,eight DMX-controlled Magic EffectsCO2 jets made sure of the audience'sattention, and even more so whenthey were joined by sparking NextFXsilver jets — fired on a rapid chasesequence around the stage. White alsofired a number of CO2 streamercannons from the truss to bring theceremony to an extravagant climax.

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Above: Dave Gaydoncollects the Venue

award for TheRoundhouse, pre-sented by Entec’sDick Collins; John

Probyn of LiveNation with ByronCarr of Favourite

Travel Agency, MusicBy Appointment.

Left: Des Fallon, JoBeirne and Lee

Spencer of multi-award-winning XL

Video (with MickeyCurbishley of PRG).

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Above: Jeff Wayne and Mervyn Thomas of Total Fabrications; Lift-Turn-Move’s John Jones; Brian May waxes lyrical; Amptown Cases’ John O’Neill; DaveCooper of Midas with Wigwam’s Chris Hill, who collected on behalf of Gary Bradshaw; KB Event’s Leanne McPherson with Rachel Esson; Dirk Eykel andMartin Corr of top freight firm Sound Moves; a jubilant Brian Mann and Tony Ball of Show & Event Security with Kevin Thorborn of The Mojo Barriers.

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AFTER THE BALLThis year, we pulled out the stops to lay on a 'bespoke'after-show party and several of our productionsuppliers extended their roles to ensure it all went witha swing. Thanks to Sunbaba, who assisted with thesupply of a pair of welcome banners, our guests wereguided down to the Novotel's ground floor ChablisSuite where they drank, grooved and networked untilthe crack of dawn.

The ML Group installed a Lab.gruppen-poweredEAW PA system comprising of eight KF-300s and fourSB-1000 subs to reinforce a programme of 'good-time''60s and classic disco tracks, direct from yours truly'siPod!

Kate Perring from Digital Insanity produced a loopof interesting '60s period video clips (Woodstock, NMEPoll Winners Concerts, early Led Zep, etc.) to feedthrough six of HSL's Robe DigiSpots, while HSL lit theroom in general with James Thomas PixelArc battens ina circular format, plus 20 ETC Source Four profiles and12 Robe 250 Color Wash fixtures, all controlled byNathan Wan from an Avolites Diamond 4.

The party vibe was greatly enhanced by theamazing ShowLED Animation drape, as provided byS+H Technical Support, and programmed/controlledby Chris Horrell and Jason Till. Driven by customArkaos software, the 18m x 4.5m 'superdrape' dazzledthe revellers with its myriad high quality graphicsrenditions.

"I was totally gobsmacked by the ShowLED," saidHSL's Mike Oates. "Nothing on the website preparesyou for just how good it is. The resolution isn't like avideo source, like a 6mm or 10mm pitch, because it

appears a lot more random than that. When theyturned it on I was blown away and it finished the roomoff perfectly."

SURPRISESWhilst news of the tragic and sudden death of SSE'sRichard Willis threatened to cloud the entire evening,he probably would have been happy that thecelebratory remained intact, and as usual, the awardsceremony provided a mixture of surprises in terms ofthe winners.

No one was more surprised that Chris Runciman,the veteran production manager — and technical gurubehind the Montserrat Cultural Centre — whoscooped the Unsung Hero award. The look on his facewhen the penny dropped was worth a million dollars!

Stéphane Mongeau, VP of Production at Cirque duSoleil, Inc., flew in specially from Quebec to accept theEditor's Award for his company from myself and SirGeorge Martin, and production legend Robbie Williams(the elder) received his much-deserved LifetimeContribution Award from Brian May. Our othervictorious winners are listed below.

It seemed that the general opinion was that we'dexceeded our previous standards of production, andalthough it's hard for me to be objective in thisinstance, I can say that everyone in the team playedtheir part brilliantly, with the ceremony itself knittedtogether by the precise skills of our regular show-caller,Alex Clayton.

A much higher number of radio frequencies thanbefore was used across the event, and this was alsokey to a safe and smooth-running production — please

take note, Ofcom.As well as acknowledging the work and support of

all of our production crew and supply companies, andour valued award sponsors, I’d like to personally thankmy Mondiale colleagues Hannah Eakins for superblyhandling the event's marketing in the face of immensepressure; Lisa Kershaw for looking after table sales andthe role of stage assistant on the night; and, last butcertainly not least, Martin Mochan who as MondialeEvents Director allowed me the freedom of being apart-time creative director whilst keeping my'enthusiasm' in check with a rigid grip on the budget!

Also, a big thank you to Sophie Robinson whomade a fine job of her debut in this industry as aproduction assistant, and a salute to all who made mybirthday (conveniently on the same day) go with abang!

Since we launched the TPi Awards in 2002, ourcategory count has dramatically increased from 17 to26, and yet there are still sectors of the industry thatfeel overlooked. How to include every area of the livebusiness whilst still retaining the attention of an easilydistracted audience is a challenge that will determinejust how far we can extend the presentation in thefuture. Sensible suggestions are always welcome!

We'll be announcing some very exciting plans for2008 — TPi's 10th anniversary year — within the nextfew months.TPi

Photography byLouise Stickland, Jim Ellam,

Mark Cunningham & Graham Brown

Production Manager of the Year (sponsored by Rock-It Cargo) Wob Roberts • Tour Manager of the Year (sponsored by EFM & Chapman Freeborn) Andy

Franks • Production Co-ordinator of the Year (sponsored by Amptown Cases) Julie Chennells • Front of House Engineer of the Year (sponsored by Midas)Gary Bradshaw • Monitor Engineer of the Year (sponsored by Shure Distribution UK) Andy 'Baggy' Robinson • Lighting Designer of the Year (sponsoredby Martin Professional) Al Gurdon • Rigger of the Year (sponsored by Columbus McKinnon) Danny Spratt • Video Director of the Year (sponsored byThe Picture Works) Blue Leach • Set Designer of the Year (sponsored by Star Events Group) Bill Laslett • Stage Manager of the Year (sponsored byThe HSL Group) Richard 'Wez' Wearing • Favourite International Production Company (sponsored by Yamaha Commercial Audio) Ampco Flashlight

Group • Favourite Sound Rental Company (sponsored by Klark Teknik) Capital Sound Hire • Favourite Lighting Rental Company (sponsored by RobeShow Lighting) Neg Earth Lights • Favourite Set Construction Company (sponsored by Blackout) Total Fabrications • Favourite Staging CompanyStageco • Favourite Video Services Company (sponsored by Lighthouse Technologies) XL Video • Favourite Transport Company KB Event • FavouriteFreight Company Sound Moves • Favourite Travel Agency Music By Appointment • Favourite Security/Crowd Management Company (sponsored by TheMojo Barriers BV & Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College) Show & Event Security • Favourite Catering Company Eat To The Beat • FavouriteVenue (sponsored by Entec Sound & Light) The Roundhouse • Live Production of the Year (sponsored by DiGiCo) Take That: The Ultimate Tour • TheJohn Peel Unsung Hero Award (in consultation with the PSA, sponsored by Audio-Technica) Chris Runciman • The Editor's Award (sponsored by SpeedyRigging Hire) Cirque Du Soleil • Lifetime Contribution Award (sponsored by XL Video) Robbie WilliamsWIN

NERS

54 TPi MARCH 07

RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH 1,200 FRIENDS!productionprofile